Academics and Athletics: Playing for the Same Team

High expectations greeted Dr. Myles Brand when he became president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in January 2003. As the fourth president of the nation's most powerful amateur sports organization, Brand has the distinction of being the first to have been a college president. As president of Indiana University, the veteran administrator gained national attention in 2000 for firing the controversial Indiana University-Bloomington basketball coach Bobby Knight over professional misconduct. A few months after the Knight firing, Brand urged broad reforms of college athletics during a highly regarded speech at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. That speech later proved instrumental in helping position Brand at the top of the NCAA presidential candidate list during a seven-month search in 2002. "Reform and advocacy are the dual guideposts to our future success," he declared in the annual NCAA address shortly after taking office at the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis. With those words and more, Brand has sent the message that the NCAA is committed more than ever to the academic success of student-athletes in American higher education. This month, the NCAA board is expected to approve an "incentives/disincentives" plan designed to bolster graduation rates by holding individual colleges and universities responsible for the academic performance of its student-athletes.
To carry out reforms that put academics first and foremost, Brand, whose NCAA contract runs through 2007, draws upon his long career that spans from the Indiana and University of Oregon presidencies to his early days as a philosophy professor. He has also served as chairman of the board of the Association of American Universities. In late March just as the NCAA college basketball tournaments were getting under way, Black Issues spoke to Brand about the leadership challenges he faces.